Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/531

Rh The Pinnated Grous is easily tamed, and easily kept. It also breeds in confinement, and I have often felt surprised that it has not been fairly domesticated. While at Henderson, I purchased sixty alive, that were expressly caught for me within twelve miles of that village, and brought in a bag laid across the back of a horse. I cut the tips of their wings, and turned them loose in a garden and orchard about four acres in extent. Within a week they became tame enough to allow me to approach them without their being frightened. I supplied them with abundance of corn, and they fed besides on vegetables of various kinds. This was in the month of September, and almost all of them were young birds. In the course of the winter they became so gentle as to feed from the hand of my wife, and walked about the garden like so many tame fowls, mingling occasionally with the domestic poultry. I observed that at night each individual made choice of one of the heaps in which a cabbage had grown, and that they invariably placed their breast to the wind, whatever way it happened to blow. When spring returned, they strutted, "tooted," and fought, as if in the wilds where they had received their birth. Many laid eggs, and a good number of young ones made their appearance, but the Grous at last proved so destructive to the young vegetables, tearing them up by the roots, that I ordered them to be killed. So brave were some of the male birds, that they never flinched in the presence of a large Turkey Cock, and now and then they would stand against a dunghill cock, for a pass or two, before they would run from him.

During very severe weather, I have known this species to roost at a considerable height on trees, but they generally prefer resting on the ground, I observed that for several nights in succession, many of these Grous slept in a meadow not far distant from my house. This piece of ground was thickly covered with tall grass, and one dark night I thought of amusing myself by trying to catch them. I had a large seine, and took with me several Negroes supplied with lanterns and long poles, with the latter of which they bore the net completely off the ground. We entered the meadow in the early part of the night, although it was so dark that without a light one could hardly have seen an object a yard distant, and spreading out the leaded end of the net, carried the other end forward by means of the poles at the height of a few feet. I had marked before dark a place in which a great number of the birds had alighted, and now ordered my men to proceed towards it. As the net passed over the first Grous in the way, the alarmed bird flew directly towards the